The Fine Line

Disclaimer: the following is a work of fiction, none of these characters are real and any resemblance to real persons, living or zombie, is coincidental....but if anyone does know the trio described in this story, please, let me know. I invented them a few years ago when I was bored and I've written them so much that I think they've come to life....kinda like harold crick, but in a more creepy scifi way, so if they have gained life somehow, I need to know so they don't wreak havoc everywhere....beware Jem....she likes to sell pieces of pie for souls....Ah yes, and as I have created everything herein, the rights all belong to me, not you, me, and recreating any of this without my express permission is prohbitied. If you do, and Robert does exist somewhere, I swear to god that I will sic him on you with a big stick!

A/N: Hey all, chapter 3, up and ready. Originally, each chapter was composed of both Aaron's and Vincents views, but because it was all typed out double spaced in manuscript format, it looked to long, so when I transfered it here, I decided to shorten it and now I'm thinking I should lengthen it again...what do you think? Feedback is extremely needed, seen as I do intend on eventually having this published, if I can find a publisher who will take it...please review!!!



(Vincent)
“And so we lay to rest Virginia Mitchell, a true saint among women. Her kind heart and loving smiles will be forever remembered by all those she has left behind.” The preacher was finally winding down his long service, but I hardly noticed. My mind was stuck replaying the moment I had come home to see her being closed up in a black bag. My mother, on a gurney, in a black body bag. I remember I vaguely heard the paramedics say something about being shocked at how long she had survived on sheer will power, how amazing it was that she had gone through it without anything strong to help the pain of her lungs decaying. I remember seeing Aaron, perfect fucking Aaron sitting on the couch, staring at me with some sort of sick sympathy. I remember him telling them that they were doing breathing exercises when the attack happened. The one that killed her. “And now, is there anyone who would like to say a few words?” Aaron was already halfway to the podium.
Murderer. “Mrs. Mitchell was the purest soul I have ever met….” You killed her. “She insisted on giving me piano lessons, even though I couldn’t pay for them.” Selfish, greedy, little… “Hers was a heart full of love for everyone around her, but she told me that the person she loved most was her son Vincent.”
“Bastard!!” Of course, I hadn’t really intended on saying that out loud, just as I hadn’t really intended on trying to choke the lying, murdering piece of shit. I certainly hadn’t intended on getting knocked out by a very strong person before I’d even taken a step towards him. Waking up on an uncomfortable rug in a room that smelled like antiseptic, weak coffee and rotting flowers was also not on the agenda, but that’s what happened.
Before I even opened my eyes I did a mental inventory; my head hurt, I was lying face down on a scratchy old something or other and I couldn’t move or breathe very well because something heavy was sitting on my back. I’d like to say that I’ve woken up in worse situations, but I knew the moment I peeled open one eyelid to see where I was that I was in deep shit. A pair of perfectly manicured feet in strappy lace up silver heels was tapping out an impatient rhythm on the floor in front of my face next to someone wearing huge biker boots and a floor length leather trench coat. That meant that the heavy thing that was now bouncing on my back was….oh god.
“Well? How long are we going to wait for the brat to wake up?” the trench-coat-wearer grunted.
“Oh he’s awake,” laughed silver-shoes, “He’s just hoping that if he keeps his eyes closed and stays still he won’t be in trouble. It’s the T-Rex defense.”
“I didn’t know you were that old Jem!” the bouncing one giggled and was smacked upside the head for it judging from the dull ‘thwack’ and the loud, “Ouch!” from about three feet above my kidneys.
“Aunt Jem.” I finally groaned as the bouncing redoubled, “Get Helga off me…please.”
“It lives!!” Helga, the bouncing one, squealed and bounced even harder. I’m almost positive she cracked a rib and I was starting to see black spots that clearly meant I wasn’t getting enough oxygen.
“Alright, that’s enough; I don’t think he can breathe….” Jem sighed and dropped down in the lotus position, bending low at the waist to glare at me with her weird silver eyes. “Once you’ve caught your breath I expect a full explanation for your outburst, and then you and I are going to have a little chat.” she informed me in her ‘I’m calm and collected but if you try to give me any bullshit I’ll kick your ass with my custom designer heels’ voice.
Once Helga was dragged off of me I managed to sit up and glare at the one in the trench coat, Robert, my aunt’s bodyguard. “Did you have to hit me so hard?” I grumbled as I rubbed the lump on the back of my head. He said nothing, just raised an eyebrow and glared back twice as fiercely as before. Robert had been kicking me around whenever I did something stupid since I was really little, so I didn’t really expect an explanation. I sighed and looked for Helga, Jem’s personal assistant and best friend. Because of her massive memory loss issues and her extreme hyperness she was a danger to herself and everyone around her. I liked to keep her in my line of sight whenever they visited so I would know when to run. Also, I was stalling. Jem was probably pissed enough as it was that we hadn’t called her for help with the doctor bills. It wouldn’t do any good to tell her that the reason I hadn’t even known about the cancer was because I had been avoiding mom so she wouldn’t worry about my feelings. Jem wouldn’t understand that it was entirely his fault. No, I hadn’t been home so I hadn’t seen, but the reason I hadn’t been home was him. If he hadn’t been there every damned day then I would have known mom was sick and I would have called Aunt Jem for help, just because I knew my father’s sister could afford it. But how could I tell her that?
“Well?” She demanded, but I remained silent, staring at the faded pattern on the rug, trying to decide if it had once been roses or teapots…..roses made more sense, but old people die more then anyone else, and old people like tea, so it was a total toss up.
“Listen runt, you better start talking or I swear you’ll be….” Robert started but was surprisingly stopped by my aunt. She’d never stopped him from pummeling me into submission before. I told myself that she’d never let him hurt me and the only reason she never stopped it was usually because I gave in before he could do anything other then scare me and she didn’t need to…
“No Robert. Don’t push it.” She ordered as she stood up and brushed off her black pants suit. “I’m sure he has his reasons, and as stupid as they might be, they were obviously important enough to him that he felt he could lose his temper and try to attack an innocent….”
“He killed her.” I whispered harshly, feeling my throat burn at the words I had only thought but never spoken. She said nothing. The unidentifiable pattern on the carpet blurred around the edges but I refused to break. I looked up at her, “He killed her.” I couldn’t make my voice rise above that painful quite whisper, but I put as much force behind it as I could, “Aaron killed my mother.”
“She had cancer Vincent.” Jem said coolly with practically no feeling. “She died because she had too much pride to come to her ex-husband’s sister for the money she needed for treatment. If anything, she killed herself.”
“No!” I shook my head hard enough for my hair to come out of its tie and whip my face with each pass. “She died because I wasn’t there. I didn’t know she was sick because I wasn’t there, and I wasn’t there because he was. He knew. He could have told me, he could have told anybody, but he didn’t. He just kept making her push herself to give him his damned voice lessons even when she’d dropped everyone else’s. She didn’t kill herself. He killed her. And I wish I could kill him for taking her from me.” Jem sat again, probably thinking of all the ways she could shoot down my logic, of all the ways she could tell me that I was wrong and that my mother had been responsible for her own death or…...No, I wasn’t going to go there. I started to study the carpet again. A teapot. It was definitely a teapot…..or maybe a teapot with roses on it?
“Fine. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, even if the opinion is completely wrong.” She said finally and my head shot up to stare at her incredulously, as were Helga and Robert. Jem never gave up that easy! “Then I guess the only thing to decide now is what we’re going to do with you.” She continued, ignoring all of us.
“What do you mean?” I asked warily. Maybe she wasn’t giving up after all; maybe she was going to threaten to take me to the police for assault….
“Well, if you ever paid any attention to anything except yourself, you would know that the contents of your mother’s will name me as your guardian,” she snapped, then said with a sigh, “But my USA pad isn’t exactly homey, and since I travel so much I would hardly be a good role model for you.” I snorted at her reasoning. My aunt wouldn’t be a good role model even if her feet were cemented to the floor of her house. She raised an eyebrow to silence me and continued, “I would say you should travel with me, but you’re just a sophomore right? So you’ve definitely got to continue school….I could arrange for an apartment for you here so you could keep going to the school you’re at now, but the authorities in America are a lot less understanding about kids living on their own….”
Silently I fumed. If I had to go to the same school as him for another three years I was damn sure I wouldn’t be able to stop another outburst, and I was equally sure Robert wouldn’t be there to drop me like a nine-pin again. Damn. “But, Aunt Jem….” I started, about to explain emancipation and all of that.
“Japan on the other hand is much more lenient and my house in Tokyo is always full of people….” She mused, grinning at my dropped jaw. She’d been promising to take me to her house in Tokyo since I was nine but mom had always changed her mind at the last second. She liked Jem, no one could help but like Jem, but Jem was well known for suddenly taking off with no warning and not showing up again for years and years, also without warning but usually when you’d just been thinking that you needed her for something important. As a result I’d spent almost every summer studying the Japanese language until I was nearly as proficient as Aunt Jem herself, and she claimed she grew up there. I dropped all arguments immediately, because even though nothing would make me happier then putting a nice fist sized dent in Perfect Aaron’s skull, a teeny tiny, itsy bitsy, microscopic part of me admitted that killing him wasn’t the best idea I’d ever come up with. After all, why did god create punching bags if he wanted us to go around knocking each other’s lights out?